The word "charity" descends from the Latin word caritas
originally meaning "esteem or affection". Charity is usually taken
these days to simply mean "benevolence towards the poor" -- that is, a
donation of money or goods to the needy, or "a charity" means an
organization that collects money or goods and uses those to benefit
their needy recipients.

But in Masonry it should be understood in an earlier context. The
new Mason first encounters the word "Charity" in the well-known verse
from Corinthians I, Chapter 13:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and
have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a
tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy,
and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though
I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have
not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity
suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily
provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. [...] And
now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the
greatest of these is charity.

In the earliest Latin translations of the Bible, translators needed a
word for the Greek agape (aγáπη), meaning "spiritual love".
But the usual choice amor was closer to the Greek eros
which included connotations of romantic and carnal love, and which did
not suit the intentions the translators. So they chose the word
caritas to emphasize that agape meant selfless love,
or loving kindness, compassion. (In Hebrew, those words are,
respectively chesed and rachamim.) In later
centuries, when the Latin bible was translated into English,
caritas was rendered in some places as "love" and in others as
"charity", and you can find both used today in various translations.

The author of that passage in Corinthians was not speaking of
"charity" as simply donation to the poor, nor as romantic love, but as
compassion, a concern for another that reaches from one soul to another
and can change both. I can't tell you "when it started" because it may
be that the origins of charity go back to the very dawn of humanity. It
may have been one of the Divine sparks and fragments of Charity that
kindled the beginnings of humankind. I don't think that's a question
which accumulated evidence could ever answer.

If a Mason ever truly manages to connect the lessons he hears in
lodge about Brotherly Love with his heart's instinct for true
Charity/Caritas/Agape/Chesed, then he has learned one of the deepest
secrets of Masonry, one that could never be printed in any "Masonic
exposure".

fraternally,

-- Gary L. Dryfoos
A Page About Freemasonry
now at http://MasonryPage.org/